change

Sometimes I confuse my dreams with the remembered events from which my dreams derived their emotional elements. Due to confusion in attribution, I sometimes believe I am remembering real events when those memories are actually my remembrances of dreams instead.

For example, an event of the day results in me feeling overpowered by my boss. That night, I dream I am being chased by a bear. Upon awakening in the morning, I imagine my partner is acting abusively toward me. In this case, the attribution of the emotion of powerlessness travels from boss to dream bear to partner.

Out of Attribution Confusion

Knowing that memories are fallible and subject to errors in attribution, I reconfirm that I can manipulate memories – through dreams molded to help support how I want to feel today. Maybe you can change the details of your memories to support a new you.

What if you chose to restructure your dreams from a perspective of gratitude rather than victim-hood?

“How do I do that?” you might reasonably ask. I can control a dream using lucid dreaming in which I realize I’m dreaming while I’m dreaming. This is a very powerful imagery because it includes full sensory engagement – a real experience. That’s one way to manipulate emotionally charged memories.

Comes a New You

Another method is to perform a simple bedtime exercise. As you find yourself drifting off to sleep…

Recall a negative emotion-charged memory of an experience you had that day. Just let it flash across the stage of your soon-to-be dreaming mind.

Resist the temptation to ruminate over the memory and how you feel about it. This is NOT about fixing a problem – it’s about confusing attribution.

Then, immediately after recalling the negative event, recall a memory of ANY TIME in your life that supports how you’d rather feel. It’s important that the last memory you entertain before slipping off to sleep is one where you feel strong, capable, happy, and grateful.

Then, let the dreams come.

The idea is to set gratitude as the last emotion just before dropping off to sleep. The dream-attribution mechanism then presents stories from a baseline perspective of gratitude. That may affect your dream stories and memories of the day. It could also change your overall perspective.

You may not recall your dreams the next morning – that’s okay. The confusion just as you fell asleep may be just enough to confound your dream-attribution mechanism. You may view your emotionally-charged memory of the previous day in a new way. Perhaps you’ll solve a problem associated with that memory or suddenly experience a flash of inspiration concerning it. Who knows?

Practicing this simple exercise just before sleep might just create a new you.

Manifestation is about making things happen. Maybe you made some new year resolutions – expressing ways in which you would like to see your life change for the better. Maybe this will be the year you quit smoking, or get that raise, or lose that weight. Whatever it is, your first action is to NAME the change you want to make. You have done this part so often that you maybe now take it for granted.

You are already taking action on what it is you really want – it’s automatic – you do it unconsciously. Based on your beliefs, you take action that is appropriate with what you accept as true – your beliefs. You don’t even have to think about or plan anything – you do it automatically.

For example, when you believe you are inadequate, you set up scenarios in which you confirm that belief – not enough money, not enough willpower, not enough whatever…

About Manifestation

Why, then, do you not get what you want? The truth is – you mostly DO get what you want (or at least are satisfied with). You just don’t recognize it – because you are so used to getting what you want from life.

If you continue to act (behaving) as you have acted in the past – based on what you believed to be true in the past – you will tend to continue to get what you have gotten in the past. You’ll continue to take the appropriate action to achieve whatever it is that you have gotten in the past. You do those actions so well by now that you are unconscious of them. You’re a master at doing whatever it is that you do to achieve what you are currently experiencing.

The reason you don’t have what you think you want is because you don’t realize that you already have exactly what it is you want. Things and events appear to happen as they do; you and others appear to act as they do because you believe a certain way. It appears that they, not you, are in charge of their lives, getting what they want, and etc. That appearance is simply feedback to you about YOUR BELIEFS.

What about Investments?

In my bubble awareness, I perceive that I have a problems – “needs” – debts I believe were imposed upon me and that I must satisfy through endless personal investments. It’s like being in a pit, seeking to escape by digging deeper. Any hope for freedom only reinforces my investment to keep digging. A problem arises when I don’t recognize the futility of my situation.

As long as I believe that there are problems to be solved, I can never feel safe in my bubble awareness. Thus my investment in solutions in the form of weaponry, security, defense, and vigilance. Yet, does war solve the problem of war? How can a problem solve a problem? My need for investment in problems is not a solution.

Changing the context of my reality

The reason I believe there are problems to be fixed is because I believe I’m a problem that needs fixing. To change that belief, that reality, I want to see myself as I am rather than as I am not. Once I am no longer a problem nor a solution to a problem, I can choose to see reality as it is. I wonder, could this be the final solution?

How problem solving helps me resist awakening into accountability,

and what I might do about it!

A problem is defined by Mr. Webster as, “a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome.” Problems are need-based, requiring solutions. With a problem there is a sense of obligation to attend to it – often right away. Problems grab my attention – just as threats do.

When threats come up, I go into defense mode. My vision narrows. My muscles tense. I get ready for combat. Perhaps not the best mode to be in for taking accountability or awakening into bliss.

Sometimes problem solving looks like a cat chasing its tail. For example, a gambler may borrow money so he can plunk it down at the table, figuring he’s lost so many times before, this time he must surely be the winner. His solution to each loss (itself a problem to be solved) is to solve the problem of funding the next attempt at the “big win.” It’s the same thing addicts face every time they need a fix.

Is Problem Solving an Addiction?

Problems tend to beget more problems. The solution to each problem seems to create more little problems of its own. After while, I’m caught up in wildfire fighting – solving problem after problem. Until I can no longer hold the fire hose, I’m so damned tired! Yet, I’m still looking for that next big win over my problems.

Problems need solving, which tends to capture my attention and imagination – and my energy – until I realize problem solved or realize futility and give up or realize some other outcome. No matter how I solve the problem, I make the problem real – I realize it. Once real, the problem and the attention I give to solving it own my energy.

And there’s the thing, then. Anything I make real, I tend to defend. Judgment, justifications, distracted attention – all play defense when I’m “working the problem.”

How might I go about effectively solving problems without getting into defense – without making the problem the problem, defending it as real, important enough to focus attention on it, and making it much more difficult to solve as a result?

How About Wording?

Let’s look at words for a moment. I like to think of words as little soap bubbles that encapsulate sound vibration, symbolism, meanings, defense, emotions, and a bunch more stuff. Put meaning-full words together into sentences and paragraphs and you have rich imagery that does something deep within the non-corporeal me that affects my corporeal world. My image of the world IS my world. That’s why words are so important.

Fortunately, symbolism, meanings, and emotions can change in relation to words. I don’t have to settle for common definitions that I may incorrectly house in my vocabulary. I can play with definitions. Unless, of course, I’m with others. Over time, I tend to surround myself with people who help me fortify and defend my previous definitions, symbols, and meanings for words. The moment I change my definitions, and speak those words out loud, others will tend to question my sanity, my motives, my connection with them. I may feel threatened enough to abandon my new definitions. Or, I may instead courage-up and perhaps find that I can lead my circle of friends and family into a new era.

The Power of Vocabulary

My vocabulary can change, too. I’m not stuck with words I’ve used in the past. I can consciously choose to replace need-based words with words that up-lift or help me awaken into accountability – that will affect my underlying belief system.

For example, my underlying belief is that a problem must be solved – else it wouldn’t be a problem. The word, problem, has certain connotations that I strongly hold onto and defend. Whenever I hear that word, my mind goes instantly and instinctively into problem solving mode – distracting my attention. The pull to problem solve is so strong in me that I accept that redefining the word will not change how I feel about it.

Instead, I chose to replace the word, problem, with the word, opportunity. To me, problems feel more immediate and need-based. Opportunities offer an invitation to excel – like a game I can win. Opportunity still grabs my attention and so are not the ultimate answer for me – this word exchange is a sort of step-stone measure. Perhaps my next shot will be exchanging the word, opportunity, for the word, catalyst – a neutral word that invokes a sense of change already in progress, a ball rolling downhill.

Beyond Words

Viewing the world as a problem to be solved sets and keeps me firmly within the First-Second Degree of Illumination bubble – fighting, competing, and needing! The words I hear myself speak can help me remain face-down in the mud of my problems or help me rise above them where I can see the field for what it is – an illusion.

Words can offer a beginning to change from defensiveness to openness and then to accountability. I move from problem solving into taking on my life with a sense of boundless gratitude and broadening awareness.

I can use words to change my perspective from problem solving to opportunity acceptance. Then onward into full gratitude and perhaps awakening into full accountability.

It seems that I can’t count how many times a distraction has side-tracked me from doing something I felt was important. I’ve encountered plenty of distractions that seemed to sabotage, slow down, or stop my progress. If only I could make them… Oh look, a birdie!

What if that perspective is itself a distraction? What if I’ve got this distraction thing all bass ackwards? Far from being a negative thing to be avoided, what if distractions are intentional and useful?

Intention and Perspective

To validate their perspective, an artist intends to distract and to capture the attention of their audience. When my attention follows distraction my perspective is affected by my need to increase attention to distractions.

Perhaps it’s true that behind every distraction is an opportunity waiting to open a door to different perspectives. It would seem as though distractions invite questioning to resolve defenses. That sounds useful to me.

Could distractions be the way out of my First-Second Degree of Illumination bubble?

Thought holds a vibration, a language that perspective uses to design reality. Perspective expresses design through patterns of thinking and feeling. Any change in pattern will change perspective and vice versa. I make these changes through intention.

When I feel distracted from my intention, I can defend and stay or consider new perspectives. Could this be a choice point? – that sounds useful to me.

My reality has defining boundary lines and distinct meanings. Those meanings that drive my perspective also serve as vital structural rules of my creation. As I affect the meanings of my perceptions, I change the influence of my distractions. I can use them to change my degree of illumination.